24 Feb 2009

The BBC is notorious for moderating comments on their website, so mine will probably not get published - but here it is for my blog's benefit. I challenge you to disagree.

I say: "Questions on UC (like Mastermind) are distinctly British and mainly test memory. In today's world, when it has become much easier to access information, people that are truly intelligent put more effort into being able to analyse diverse and large quantities of information than in memorising its detail. University Challenge participants might be brainy, but for this reason, are probably quite un-intelligent."

So in effect, Gail Trimble might be the brainiest woman in Britain, but her success on 'University Challenge' is perhaps evidence that she does not use her capability intelligently enough.

Analysing this in technological terms, it would be stupid to make the CPU in a computer do the graphics processing when a separate graphics chip is already present on the board.

Rather than admiring such an obvious fault, we should be condemning those that implement it this way. University Challenge is an obsolete concept from an age when information was still only found in print and fifficult to aggregate. We need a 'University challenge 2.0' now.

Brain power is expensive. Machines are cheap. Lets leave the memorization to the machines please and leave us to do higher things - like analysis, or invention. Anybody?

14 Feb 2009

This Valentine's Day, before we express our love to the significant people in our lives, lets remember that several hundred million people around the world are probably unable to enjoy love as much as the rest of us can, or be intimate with their partners without being affected by trauma that persists from their childhood.

To draw an analogy, yes, when we were young our parents asked us to finish the food on our plate because children were starving in poor parts of the world (and they still are). I haven't seen this in many other parts of the world, but in most parts of India, ostentatiousness is looked down upon when there is so much exposure to extreme poverty everyday. So just as we must respect other people's hunger and poverty, so must we respect the inability of many people to love, be loved and be happy.

Am I being overly dramatic? Well I wish I was.

Consider this: India has 19% of the world's children. Yes, 19%. One in five. And over half of them - 50%, have been and continue to be sexually abused. This according to a UN study in partnership with the Indian government conducted in 2007.

What does that mean? Even if there was no child sex abuse in other parts of the world and remained only in India, such figures mean that one in every 10 children in the whole world would have been sexually abused. The actual figure though, is much higher. There is probably more abuse in your country than you imagine. And these things don't happen to 'other people'. There is probably evidence of some sexual abuse in your extended family. People you know still struggle with it and find it difficult to come to terms with it.

And for Indians under the misconception that this only happens in rural parts of India, well, I am from a fairly elite background and there are several people I know and mix with, who were sexually abused. These are people who have come out in the open - many more lie quiet, too traumatised by their childhoods to ever speak about it again.

What better way then, for those of us who are fortunate enough to have led relatively happier childhoods, to give a little money to a charity that helps such children. They only need $12K (although if you're a millionaire and want to donate more, please do) - a small drop comapred to what is needed, but hey, its not so difficult to make a start. Your $20 will go a long way.

Across the world, 150 million girls and 73 million boys are subjected to forced sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual violence (WHO, 2002). In the U.S. at least one out of four girls and one out of seven boys are sexually abused by 18 years old. Nearly 50 percent of all sexual assaults are against girls aged 15 or younger. There are an estimated 60-80 million survivors of CSA in the U.S. alone.

Life outcomes often include poor school performance, depression, psychosis, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, prostitution, drug abuse, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV, homelessness, suicide and homicide, and chronic disease. Between doctors, lawyers, social service workers and many others, it costs the U.S. billions of dollars each year to address the aftermath of the abuse - it needs to be prevented, and treated correctly if it happens.

The Mission of Stop the Silence is to expose and stop child sexual abuse and help survivors heal worldwide. The charity’s overarching goals are to:

1) help stop child sexual abuse (CSA) and related forms of violence;2) promote healing of victims and survivors;3) celebrate the lives of those healed.

Through their work, Stop the Silence aims to address the relationships between child sexual abuse and the broader issues of overall family and community violence, and violence within and between communities.

While the popular belief is that sexual abuse is carried out by strangers who lure their child victims, the majority is actually carried out by people in positions of trust. Family; friends of the family; teachers; community leaders and more. This leaves the child feeling as if they’re to blame - why else would someone they trust abuse them in this way?

While our original charity for February was going to be an animal-based one, the 12for12k Challenge believes strongly in what Stop the Silence is trying to achieve. We hope you do too, and help us raise much-needed funds for this inspiring cause.

Note: When using the ChipIn widget to make your donation, the email on the front page will be the main 12for12k Charities one. However, your payment does go directly to Stop the Silence and your PayPal or Credit Card receipt will show this.

4 Feb 2009

Just noticed that Christoph Niemann new post on his blog on the New York Times titled I Lego NY. Someone in one of the comments compared it to Saul Steinberg's art.

So had a look at the Saul Steinberg Foundation page and got this off it: "Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) was one of America’s most beloved artists, renowned for the covers and drawings that appeared in The New Yorker for nearly six decades and for the drawings, paintings, prints, collages, and sculptures exhibited internationally in galleries and museums." Take a look at some of his art in the gallery here

On the foundation's website, I found this one piece particularly fascinating - pretty representative of the current economic crisis in my opinion. Greed, achievement and more greed. And then Kaput.